We strive to operate our business in an environmentally sustainable way. Recognizing that the development, manufacture and distribution of our therapies use natural resources, consume energy and generate waste, we are working to minimize these impacts by making changes across our enterprise. We believe these changes help protect our planet’s resources, while making us more efficient. In 2009, we undertook a comprehensive review of our environmental practices and developed a long-term strategy that continues to inform our approach today.
We focus our efforts on four key areas:
Reducing Water Use
Water is a primary resource in the manufacture of our therapies and our most significant environmental impact. We recognize the importance of this valuable resource and work to optimize, recycle and reuse it whenever possible. Learn more about our water conservation efforts.
Reducing Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
We aim to minimize our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by leveraging efficient technologies and renewable energy sources. Learn more about our energy conservation efforts.
Reducing Solid Waste to Landfills
We actively seek new ways to reduce waste and divert it from landfills. Learn more about our waste reduction efforts.
Managing the Lifecycles of our Products
We are working to lessen the impacts of our products over their entire lifecycles. Learn more about reducing product lifecycle impacts.
Spotlight: Biogen Idec 2015 Environmental Performance Goal
Biogen Idec established a risk-weighted environmental index to track progress against reducing our environmental footprint in four key areas: water use, energy intensity, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and solid waste to landfill. To develop the index, we considered the importance of these resources to our business and the environment. For example, water is a key input to our operations and is also scarce in some regions where we operate, so we weighted water use more heavily in our overall environmental footprint. We then set a goal of reducing our overall footprint by 15 percent by 2015, compared to 2006 levels.
Our environmental footprint has remained flat in absolute terms; however, when we take into account the company’s growth, our footprint has been reduced by 52 percent compared to 2006. (For additional information, please see our Annual Report.)
Despite anticipated growth, our 2012 targets for water use, energy intensity and GHG emissions should remain flat with our 2011 levels. We anticipate that a new solid waste diversion initiative currently under way will help chart the route to where we want to be in 2015.
